


Five Times Copper Didn't Get His Hair Cut

by pearbean



Category: Gimlet Series - W. E. Johns
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-05
Updated: 2009-04-05
Packaged: 2020-10-29 22:41:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20804162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearbean/pseuds/pearbean
Summary: It is a recurring "joke" in the books that Gimlet keeps ordering Copper to have his hair cut. Copper's excuses are many and varied, this is the reasonIlike to imagine. As far as I know, this is the only piece of Trapper & Copper (very mild) slash on the internet. I may be wrong, and I would be more than happy to find out that I am :DPlease be warned about Dick Van Dyke-worthy Cockney.At least I don't think mine is any worse than W.E. Johns'.By way of additional information- more about the serieshere, thanks tocalliope85.Character cheat sheets:Captain Lorrington "Gimlet" KingLeader of King's Kittens, a WWII commando unit. Mid-20s, slim, good looking, bit of a clean freak. Likes blowing shit up, total badass.Corporal Albert "Copper" Colson6'2" early 20s, ex-policeman, boxing champion, Cockney. Very direct, likes hitting people.Private "Trapper" TroublayFrench-Canadian ex-trapper, dark-haired, slim, dapper. Carries a bow and arrows and a skinning knife, with which he is pretty much deadly. Most at home in the "wild", has a scar on his cheek which he got from an encounter with a bear.





	Five Times Copper Didn't Get His Hair Cut

**Author's Note:**

> It is a recurring "joke" in the books that Gimlet keeps ordering Copper to have his hair cut. Copper's excuses are many and varied, this is the reason _I_ like to imagine. As far as I know, this is the only piece of Trapper & Copper (very mild) slash on the internet. I may be wrong, and I would be more than happy to find out that I am :D
> 
> Please be warned about Dick Van Dyke-worthy Cockney.  
At least I don't think mine is any worse than W.E. Johns'.
> 
>   
By way of additional information- more about the series [here](http://calliope85.livejournal.com/1420.html), thanks to [](https://calliope85.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://calliope85.livejournal.com/)**calliope85**.  
Character cheat sheets:  
**Captain Lorrington "Gimlet" King**  
Leader of King's Kittens, a WWII commando unit. Mid-20s, slim, good looking, bit of a clean freak. Likes blowing shit up, total badass.  
**Corporal Albert "Copper" Colson**  
6'2" early 20s, ex-policeman, boxing champion, Cockney. Very direct, likes hitting people.  
**Private "Trapper" Troublay**  
French-Canadian ex-trapper, dark-haired, slim, dapper. Carries a bow and arrows and a skinning knife, with which he is pretty much deadly. Most at home in the "wild", has a scar on his cheek which he got from an encounter with a bear.  


Five Times Copper Didn't Get His Hair Cut

They were fresh ashore from another successful op, and Trapper could feel the energy crackling off Gimlet as he and Copper delivered their reports and stood, waiting for permission to leave, in front of Gimlet’s desk.

Trapper felt filthy, in need of a wash before he faced London. He was covered in muck from wading a ditch, mud in his hair, up the back of his neck. Gimlet was as grimy as Trapper had ever seen him; he looked like a chimney sweep. His teeth and eyes flashed white in the grey-green of his face as he rinsed his hands and arms at the basin in the corner.

“Good,” Gimlet nodded, “Dismissed. Get some rest. I don’t want to see you men here until next week.” He leant forward and started on his face with soap, surveying his progress in the small mirror on the wall.

Copper yawned widely, satisfied with the dismissal, and peered down at Trapper. _Copper’s_ face was clean and rosy as a schoolboy on his way to church, the mudsplatters reaching no higher than the breast pockets of his uniform. His eyes crinkled as he realised this for himself, and he clapped a huge hand across the back of Trapper’s neck in pleased amusement.

“Corporal,” Gimlet’s voice came after them, calm and authoritative.

“Sir?” Copper asked, snapping back to attention, fully focused on his leader. Gimlet was patting his face dry with a small towel, sharp eyes surveying them once again more as men under his command than team-mates.

“Use the time off to get a haircut,” Gimlet said, “You look like an overgrown choirboy.”

Copper frowned and examined his hair awkwardly. “Right you are, Sir,” he said, fingers feeling out the length, straightening the beginnings of the strawberry blond curls forming behind his ears. Trapper found his eyes straying back to them as they took the train, climbed the stairs to their digs, as Copper put water to boil on the stove and Trapper double-checked the blackout curtains.

Over the next few days, Trapper waited for Copper to go out and return shorn, with his hair as neatly cropped as his own or Gimlet’s. Copper went out several times. Sometimes he came back with the newspaper, and once with more coffee for Trapper, but the unruly waves remained as they had always been the whole time Trapper had known him.

Trapper said nothing, and it seemed to slip Copper’s mind.

* * *

Copper’s Mother had been wary of him at first. She didn’t hold with foreigners, even foreigners that her son depended on to safeguard his life. She’d refused to allow Trapper to visit the first few times, Copper’s honest face showing his resigned regret as he left Trapper standing in the hall with a cigarette, looking out of the small window at the unfamiliar city.

The fourth time, she’d stuck her head around the door to look at him. Her gaze had been steady and appraising, and Trapper knew he was being assessed. He’d squared his shoulders and let her look. He looked back. She was a small woman, she looked too small to be Copper’s mother. She was looking at his face, at the scar across his cheek.

“Was it really a bear?” she’d said, as if she didn’t trust Copper, “’e’s not pullin’ my leg?”

“It was a bear,” he replied, seriously.

She’d stared at him a little longer, eyes sparkling with suppressed excitement.

“Well I never,” she’d said eventually. “Come in, I want ter ‘ear all about it.” She’d held open the door for him. Copper, standing just behind her, had winked.

She made him retell the bear story every time, and according to Copper, he was lucky that he hadn’t been made to tell it to neighbours and casual callers yet. Apart from recounting the story, frequently with embellishments provided by Copper ‘for a spot more drama’, Trapper usually said little. While his English was passable, he was unable to keep up with the lightning fast rattling of speech between his friend and the old lady. Sentences which seemed incongruously to involve vegetables or desserts turned out to be about people having accidents, or gossip about the neighbours.

“You boys are on duty tomorrer?” Mrs. Colson asked, as Copper gathered the tea things and Trapper rolled up his sleeves in preparation for the washing up.

“No, Ma, not tomorrer,” Copper said, “We’ve got exercises on Tuesday. But I’ve got ter get an ‘aircut, Skipper’s orders.”

“Wot’s wrong with ‘is ‘air?” Mrs. Colson appealed to Trapper. “It’s within the rules, ain’t it?”

“Yes, Ma,” Copper sighed, not giving Trapper a chance to speak. “But I’ve told you, the Skipper, ‘e’s a real _particular_ gent. Am I right, Trapper?”

“_I’ll_ say you are,” Trapper said, elbows-deep in dishwater.

“I don’t know about particular,” Mrs. Colson said. “_Peculiar_, more like. Such an ‘andsome boy. Wouldn’t be the same if ‘e cut it off, now, would it, Mr. Trew-blay?”

She stretched up on tip-toes to straighten Copper’s hair, and Copper bore it with a slight eye-roll at Trapper.

“As you say,” Trapper said, slowly, brows knitted, “… It would be different.”

“There!” Mrs Colson said, triumphantly, “See? Mr. Trew-blay says you shouldn’t cut it neither.”

Trapper opened his mouth, but Copper was already speaking. “But Ma, the Skipper…”

“Your ‘air is short enough for the rules, it’s short enough for Captain King,” she said, indignantly.

As they descended the stairs on their way home, Copper shook his head at Trapper. “Gimlet on one side and me Ma on the other.”

Trapper laughed quietly. “_Alors_, my friend, the question is: which of them scares you most?”

“Oh, me Ma, no question,” Copper said. “But it’s another two weeks before I see ‘er. Enough time for me barnet to grow back, Trapper?”

On Tuesday, when Gimlet expressed sarcastic surprise at Copper’s lack of a haircut, Trapper tried, and failed, to feel guilty for convincing Copper that his mother would never forgive him if he went to the barber’s.

* * *

The boat was sheer chaos, packed with men, whatever equipment they had hung on to, unable to let go of. Someone was screaming on the other side of the deck, and Copper’s hand was about his wrist gripping tight enough to hurt. Trapper breathed in, once, and then dared to look at Copper, now they were safe. _As long as the boat isn’t sunk._

Copper’s face was white, his teeth clenched, and Trapper let himself think what that meant, now they were safe. Now that they weren’t running over the smooth treacherous pebbles of the beach, not face-down in the surf after that heart-sinking stumble and Copper’s hard yank to his arm.

“Where are you hit?” he said, quietly. Copper leant on him more heavily and didn’t let go of his wrist.

“Shoulder,” Copper gritted out, “an’ me leg, I think, ‘aven’t looked.”

Trapper looked. It wasn’t terrible, as long as he thought about bear traps, or snares.

He fumbled for his medical supplies one-handed, and then had to gently prise his hand out of Copper’s grip so that he could work. He was almost done when Gimlet crouched down beside him, suddenly, his sharp eyes sweeping over them.

“Trapper, Copper, are you men all right?”

“Nothin’ a good night’s kip won’t cure, Sir,” Copper said, struggling up from against Trapper’s side to try to sit more upright.

“You’d do better lying down, Corporal,” Gimlet observed, not having missed the field dressings, “It’s a long way up to your head, your blood needs all the help it can get.”

He patted Trapper’s shoulder, and stood up. “He’s in good hands,” Gimlet said. Then, more loudly so as to reach Copper’s ears. “I hope you’ll be getting that mop of yours cut when we get back, Copper, it’s a disgrace.”

“Give a bloke a chance, sir!” Copper protested, as Gimlet moved on to the next group. “You know, Trapper,” he went on, a little faintly. “I think ‘e might have been on to somethin’ when ‘e suggested lyin’ down…”

They got Copper settled down on the deck, Trapper’s uniform coat as a pillow. It took a little negotiating with the neighbouring group to make enough room for Copper’s legs, but Trapper folded himself up against the bulkhead beside Copper’s head, keeping up the pressure on his shoulder.

The steady beat of Copper’s heart beneath his fingers was better than the way Copper’s hair drifted against the inside of his wrist.

* * *

Trapper couldn't help staring at the back of Copper's neck. Red-blond curls against the khaki green of his uniform, where the over-long strands met his collar. His fingers itched to see if they were as soft as they looked, part of Copper's unruly mane. He clenched his fingers into a fist before they could do it of their own volition.

They were sitting side by side in a transport plane, somewhere over the English Channel. It was the first time for days that Trapper hadn't been completely focused on getting himself and his friends out of France alive, and it was almost exasperating that he couldn't drag his thoughts away from Copper's solid form at his elbow now that he could be thinking of hot dinners (fish and chips, undoubtedly) and clean sheets and a cup of strong coffee.

Copper's head nodded again, and a shock of hair fell into his eyes as his chin sank lower on to his chest in the beginnings of a doze. Trapper frowned, shifting on the uncomfortable bench and grinding some kind of bolt harder into his spine. Completely unfair, the way the man could sleep through the noise of the plane, impeturbable. Trapper folded his arms, forcing his eyes away from Copper's neck, sweeping round the tired faces of the other men.

"Hi back there," called the red-headed officer from the cockpit. "We'll be landing in a tick, hang on to your hats."

The plane lurched slightly with the familiar feeling of descent, and Copper woke abruptly.

"Nearly 'ome?" he asked quietly, turning his head down to murmur into Trapper's ear. With one large hand he swept the escaped strands off his forehead and back into its proper place. Trapper's gaze followed the movement, and he looked back at Copper a moment later to find him watching with a slight, pleased grin.

Trapper nodded. "Just few moments," he said calmly, meeting Copper's eyes with the raise of an eyebrow, and his arms still folded, ignoring the sudden pounding of his heart in his chest, a sensation that rarely troubled him.

The faint smile stayed on Copper’s lips as the aircraft bumped to a perfect landing. Trapper waited until Copper’s eyes left him, focused on his kit and the inevitable cup of tea ahead. Then he ducked his head, and allowed his own wisp of a smile to creep out.

* * *

They returned to the hotel lobby a little after six, shoulder to shoulder. Warm from the sunshine and smelling of mown grass and damp earth, they wiped their boots at the door and to their surprise came face to face with Cub and Gimlet.

Their friends were evidently also returning from their afternoon’s activities, fishing rods and tackle boxes in hand. Gimlet had been talking to the landlady, but his genial smile turned to an expression of faint disapproval as he caught sight of Copper’s disarray. His clothes were rumpled, his hair tousled and just too long to meet regulations now, even if the regulations no longer held any sway over them. Trapper was slightly more in order, and he’d made sure to check that his jacket covered up the rather large grass stain on the back of his white shirt.

“There… was an ‘edge, sir,” Copper tried, attempting some explanation of their appearance on their return from their afternoon walk. There was a twig and not a few leaves still tangled in his hair, and there was a patch sticking up where Trapper had clenched his fingers too enthusiastically.

“You look as though Trapper dragged you through the hedge backwards,” Gimlet said, edge of mild steel in his tone. “We’d best all go and change for dinner.”

Copper seized Trapper’s elbow and started them both up the stairs towards their room. They stopped and turned back as Gimlet continued, “And didn’t I ask you this morning to go and cut your hair? There’s a barber’s in the village.”

“Ah, the ‘aircut, sir,” Copper said, eyes sliding away from Gimlet’s to rest for a warm moment on Trapper. “Yes. Per’aps tomorrer?”


End file.
